Are Conservatives Immune to the Truth?

[raptor3x]

Link

A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder. In essence, schooling conservatives makes them more stupid. From the Washington Post article on the study, which came out yesterday:

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

In a paper approaching publication, Nyhan, a PhD student at Duke University, and Reifler, at Georgia State University, suggest that Republicans might be especially prone to the backfire effect because conservatives may have more rigid views than liberals: Upon hearing a refutation, conservatives might "argue back" against the refutation in their minds, thereby strengthening their belief in the misinformation. Nyhan and Reifler did not see the same "backfire effect" when liberals were given misinformation and a refutation about the Bush administration's stance on stem cell research.

If you've ever gotten in an argument with your conservative friends (assuming you haven't offered each other a mutual Carville-Matalin-style political ceasefire to preserve the friendship), you've probably seen this "backfire effect" in action. The more you try to tell people that Sarah Palin is lying when she says she was against the Bridge to Nowhere, the more they believe she was telling the truth. The more you try to explain how similar McCain's policies are to Bush's, the more they maintain he's "the original maverick."

The typical mantra of the left is that we don't need to sink to the Republicans' level because we have the truth on our side. But if the other side is utterly immune to the truth -- and indeed, the truth only makes them dig deeper into their fantasy world in which the economy is fundamentally strong and the War in Iraq is a staggering success -- what's a leftie to do?

I ain't got the answers, ace, except to say this: When arguing with conservatives in front of on-the-fence independents, remember that you're not trying to convince the conservative to actually buy into silly notions like facts and reason. You're highlighting the differences between left and right for the outside observer. If the other guy insists on political views that belong only in Disney World's Fantasyland, other folks will realize what's happening.

But if there is no third party, do yourself a favor and save your breath. As the study demonstrates, you're only making matters worse. Consider that aforementioned ceasefire. It is football season, after all. There's plenty of other things to argue about. Go Mizzou!

I would assume this applies to creationists as well.

[Darth Wong]

It's interesting, reading the source article, that the lingering effect of positive/negative impressions of politicians continues for both Democrats and Republicans after hearing misinformation even if it is subsequently refuted, but Republicans are unique in being more likely to believe in misinformation after seeing it refuted.

The researchers cited "rigid" thinking as the cause, but I think it's due to the fact that Republicans are rabidly anti-intellectual. Normally, a false claim is refuted by calling upon experts: highly qualified people. But Republicans have been indoctrinated to despise experts in virtually all fields of academia (especially science, but it extends to other fields as well): their opinions are deemed worthless unless they happen to agree with the Republican's beliefs. Hearing panels of experts debunk Republican claims only hardens their "us vs them" mentality and convinces them that if all of these "elitists" say it's wrong, then it must be right.

[PainRack]

Isn't this building upon previous research that shows that people would simply refuse to believe contary evidence to their opinions?

[Darth Wong]

Isn't this building upon previous research that shows that people would simply refuse to believe contary evidence to their opinions?

It's quite a bit different. It's one thing to ignore contradictory evidence; it's quite another for contradictory evidence to make you twice as likely to believe in the thing it's contradicting.

[Knife]

Shouldn't be that surprising. Conservative is pretty much synominous with traditional which means same as it's always been. There are a lot of people out there who need rules, and are incapable of making those rules themselves so need others to provide it for their moral compass. Religion and the notion of traditional values or morals supply that for them.

Liberal or progressive though makes (supposedly) for an ever changing opinion on things as they 'progress'. Hence changing positions and changing rules that someone with a 'I need a rule' morality would simply find horrific.

[Marcus Aurelius]

It's interesting, reading the source article, that the lingering effect of positive/negative impressions of politicians continues for both Democrats and Republicans after hearing misinformation even if it is subsequently refuted, but Republicans are unique in being more likely to believe in misinformation after seeing it refuted.

The researchers cited "rigid" thinking as the cause, but I think it's due to the fact that Republicans are rabidly anti-intellectual. Normally, a false claim is refuted by calling upon experts: highly qualified people. But Republicans have been indoctrinated to despise experts in virtually all fields of academia (especially science, but it extends to other fields as well): their opinions are deemed worthless unless they happen to agree with the Republican's beliefs.

It that is really so, it seems to be typical to the US. European conservatives -- not even British tories -- are usually not rabidly anti-intellectual. They do have a lot of skepticism towards social sciences and humanities, which in many countries were dominated by the Left during the Cold War, but hard science is a different matter. Of course many European countries also have parties similar to the British Liberal Democrats, which are not really "Liberal" in the American sense, even if part of their ideology matches the American stereotype of a "liberal". In Russia the Liberal Democratic party is actually ultra Nationalist, bordering on Fascist, although the name of the party was probably picked randomly from the available ones...

In any case, my experience is that all politicians and politically active people seem to accept only the science which fits their own agenda. Left wing parties or supporters are not necessarily any better in that respect. The ultimate reason for that seems to be that many socially adept people such as politicians, who are used to influencing other people, do not fully comprehend the concept of external reality even if they say that they do. Their experience in manipulating opinions and beliefs leads them to act like the physical world was also relative. Then of course there are those politician who are in politics only to gain personal power.

[Darth Wong]

There is definitely a tendency from all sides to ignore scientists and engineers when they don't say what you want to hear (see nuclear power, 9/11 conspiracies, moon landing hoax, global warming, the failure of abstinence-only sex education, etc). However, US Republicans are unusual in the sense that they have an active hostility toward intellectuals; it seems they are more likely to believe something if they know the intellectuals are lining up against it.

Republican: "Hmmm, I'm not so sure I believe in that."
Fact-checker: "Did you know that every major science organization in the world has come out in favour of it?"
Republican: "Makes you wonder what they're trying to hide, doesn't it?"

[Patrick Degan]

It's interesting, reading the source article, that the lingering effect of positive/negative impressions of politicians continues for both Democrats and Republicans after hearing misinformation even if it is subsequently refuted, but Republicans are unique in being more likely to believe in misinformation after seeing it refuted.

The researchers cited "rigid" thinking as the cause, but I think it's due to the fact that Republicans are rabidly anti-intellectual. Normally, a false claim is refuted by calling upon experts: highly qualified people. But Republicans have been indoctrinated to despise experts in virtually all fields of academia (especially science, but it extends to other fields as well): their opinions are deemed worthless unless they happen to agree with the Republican's beliefs.

It that is really so, it seems to be typical to the US. European conservatives -- not even British tories -- are usually not rabidly anti-intellectual. They do have a lot of skepticism towards social sciences and humanities, which in many countries were dominated by the Left during the Cold War, but hard science is a different matter.

Republicans look to their ignorance as a point of pride.

[Junghalli]

I'm remembering my experience debating global warming deniers on Spacebattles, where they'll desperately pull out one lame excuse after another for why global warming can't be our fault. "Human-made carbon dioxide is only a small proportion of carbon dioxide production!", "It's all part of a natural cycle!", "the Arctic sea ice melting is caused by undersea volcanoes!" and other such bullfuckery.

What's that saying? You can't confuse me with the facts, my beliefs are strong.

[Sikon]

More examples:

Have you seen the photo of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin brandishing a rifle while wearing a U.S. flag bikini? Have you read the e-mail saying Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama was sworn into the U.S. Senate with his hand placed on the Koran? Both are fabricated -- and are among the hottest pieces of misinformation in circulation.

As the presidential campaign heats up, intense efforts are underway to debunk rumors and misinformation. Nearly all these efforts rest on the assumption that good information is the antidote to misinformation.

But a series of new experiments show that misinformation can exercise a ghostly influence on people's minds after it has been debunked -- even among people who recognize it as misinformation. In some cases, correcting misinformation serves to increase the power of bad information.

In experiments conducted by political scientist John Bullock at Yale University, volunteers were given various items of political misinformation from real life. One group of volunteers was shown a transcript of an ad created by NARAL Pro-Choice America that accused John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court at the time, of "supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber."

A variety of psychological experiments have shown that political misinformation primarily works by feeding into people's preexisting views. People who did not like Roberts to begin with, then, ought to have been most receptive to the damaging allegation, and this is exactly what Bullock found. Democrats were far more likely than Republicans to disapprove of Roberts after hearing the allegation.

Bullock then showed volunteers a refutation of the ad by abortion-rights supporters. He also told the volunteers that the advocacy group had withdrawn the ad. Although 56 percent of Democrats had originally disapproved of Roberts before hearing the misinformation, 80 percent of Democrats disapproved of the Supreme Court nominee afterward. Upon hearing the refutation, Democratic disapproval of Roberts dropped only to 72 percent.

Republican disapproval of Roberts rose after hearing the misinformation but vanished upon hearing the correct information. The damaging charge, in other words, continued to have an effect even after it was debunked among precisely those people predisposed to buy the bad information in the first place.

Bullock found a similar effect when it came to misinformation about abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Volunteers were shown a Newsweek report that suggested a Koran had been flushed down a toilet, followed by a retraction by the magazine. Where 56 percent of Democrats had disapproved of detainee treatment before they were misinformed about the Koran incident, 78 percent disapproved afterward. Upon hearing the refutation, Democratic disapproval dropped back only to 68 percent -- showing that misinformation continued to affect the attitudes of Democrats even after they knew the information was false.

The above is quoted from another portion of the original article here.

There is a strong tendency for people to cling to their original views after something is logically debunked in an argument, in part because many tend to be emotionally invested with the ideological tribe with which their original view was associated. With factors including what they read down to the articles and even the very portions of those articles tending to get more selective and limited over time, they end up with far from an objective mind.

(Of course, also few people want to admit being wrong if they held or supported a view before, to the degree that one psychological study illustrated that people putting a sign for a given local candidate on their lawn just due to being paid for it tended to vote for that candidate afterwards).

For example, someone for nuclear power arguing with a Greenpeace supporter is often pointless since frequently the opposition is more based on emotion and broad base of associations than on the validity of specific facts.

With the variety of test examples in this article, at least some of them appear to be relatively straightforward where somebody seeing the refutation would not doubt its truth.

Still, there can be complications in some cases. For example, the study mentions participants being shown a transcript in one case, implying it depended on them reading. In my experience judged from various internet forums (one for a game having a particular issue with TLDR replies), a significant fraction of readers will rarely fully read and comprehend almost anything more than a fraction of a page long, whether from practical incapability or perhaps more often just being bored with it and uninterested. When a link is posted, even if just one link is made in the post, the page view count for the linked thread goes up so little as to conclude that usually 0% to 2% of readers will investigate a link (dangerous in a way since they could be reading something untrue with false references and not know).

I wouldn't be surprised if tens of percent of the participants just skim-read the refutations if they didn't like what they were seeing, making them particularly unlikely to be convinced by arguments they didn't really read.

Another factor in some cases could be the details of what was presented. For example, consider this:

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.

The article talks about tax cuts without even explicitly restricting their description of effect to the Bush tax cuts if one reads closely (just referencing Bush administration officials), yet really there could be differences between the effect of hypothetically lowering a 99% rate to a 80% rate versus hypothetically lowering a 2% rate to a 1% rate.

Anyway, if they found a group of economists of such views to write their refutation, that would quite possibly include quantitative figures. Perhaps it included, among other things, some graphs with data like that here:



(References for source data in other thread here).

Can one look at that graph and think that historical tax cuts significantly reduced revenue? Potentially yes. But some people would be prone to think that only if they saw a major decrease in revenue clearly correlating directly with the particular years of effect of the tax cuts, including those in the 1980s.

I wouldn't go so far myself as to say most of the tax cuts actually increased revenue, but I can look at the overall picture illustrated above and conclude there were some quantitative limits to their observed effect one way or another compared to other factors, to say the least (probably because a significant portion of the negative direct effect and the semi-Laffer-curve-like effect on business growth partially albeit not entirely cancel each other out).

Many people want it to be simplistic. If they aren't convinced that tax cuts cause a huge decrease in revenue, they'd want to think of it as tax cuts must increase revenue, rather than the actual situation which can be more complicated and more in between.

That's even true of politics in general where views tend towards extremes. Many people want to believe the other half of the population in their opposite party is comprised of evil morons motivated by hate, rather than seeing finer details. Many people don't really objectively study issues one by one and spend time knowing relevant quantitative data, etc.; rather, they follow the lead of their peers and groupthink.

The article's observations nevertheless seem mostly valid overall with the variety of tests, and this is just pointing out some complicating factors in some tests.

[PeZook]

It that is really so, it seems to be typical to the US. European conservatives -- not even British tories -- are usually not rabidly anti-intellectual.

If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because European conservatism has its roots in the old nobility, which was proud of the fact they were the educated elite, unlike the commoners (well, not always, but that was the attitude after "we were chosen by God to lead"). Thus, they respect good education.

American conservatives are all about glorifying honest wholesome folksy people, the "common man" who makes something of himself via hard work and sacrifice. The rednecks do that because, well, they're rednecks, and the politicians do that to pander to rednecks.

In the same breath, however, I'll say that the difference probably isn't that high, and anti-intellectualism actually happens everywhere, even if for different causes.

[Natorgator]

Although the implications of this study are hilarious, I am a bit skeptical. I wonder if you would find the same thing in liberals if you told them something the Bush administration had rebutted that was actually true. Despite the fact such evidence would be hard to produce, I think you'd probably find a lot of liberals who would distrust them outright simply because they're usually such a bad source. I know I would.

I think most of the results of this study probably stem from the extremely polarized nature of politics in America today.

[Darth Wong]

Although the implications of this study are hilarious, I am a bit skeptical. I wonder if you would find the same thing in liberals if you told them something the Bush administration had rebutted that was actually true. Despite the fact such evidence would be hard to produce, I think you'd probably find a lot of liberals who would distrust them outright simply because they're usually such a bad source. I know I would.

I think most of the results of this study probably stem from the extremely polarized nature of politics in America today.

Did you bother reading the article at all? This effect works even when former Bush Administration officials debunk the claims. It's not about being partisan; it's about ideological blinders and an inherent hostility to expertise.

And why the fuck should you find it surprising? Creationists act EXACTLY like this, and guess which party they tend to belong to.

[Simplicius]

One thing to consider is the way modern U.S. conservativism built itself up, starting in the mid-late 1950s. The stated goal of the movement was to stem and then reverse the tide of New Deal liberalism, and since the New Deal was an immensely popular set of policies, the movement decided that the only way to counter it was with ideology - Good Old Days mythology, anti-Communist inquisitions, blending religion and patriotism, poisoning the New Deal well, etc. It wasn't until 1980 that the movement finally captured the Presidency, but the Republican party as we see it today is derived largely from this new wave of ideological conservativism.

On this basis I'm not terribly surprised by this article, given the resistance of any entrenched, self-feeding ideology to refutation.

[sketerpot]

I'm starting to think that the best way to start a debate with a lot of people is to ask "What would it take to convince you that you're wrong?"

If they come up with something specific, you can aim for that. You might just force them to admit that nothing could possibly change their minds, in which case you can jeer at them for that. Also they can't call you closed-minded after they admit to being totally unconcerned with reality.

[Darth Wong]

I'm starting to think that the best way to start a debate with a lot of people is to ask "What would it take to convince you that you're wrong?"

If they come up with something specific, you can aim for that.

Except that they will promptly move the goalposts, and then you will end up arguing about whether they moved the goalposts. We've seen that behaviour again and again.

[BountyHunterSAx]

Even so, forcing someone to state what it would take to win/lose the debate in the end up front forces them to actually think about it. It also sets the tone for whether it's a debate or just a friendly exchange of information. In the case of a debate, I think it's an excellent way to start, even if it's limited.

-AHMAD